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U.S. 11th Circuit Affirms Summary Judgment of No Coverage in UM Stacking Case.

Angela C. Flowers and Bretton C. Albrecht | August 28, 2014

Angela Flowers, of the Ocala office, and Bretton Albrecht, of the Miami office, obtained an affirmance of a final summary judgment of no coverage in a UM case. This pivotal case, Brannan v. GEICO Indem. Co., 13-15213 (11th Cir. 2014), involved complex UM stacking issues, in addition to negligent procurement and related claims. Plaintiff claimed that the $300k UM policy on his automobiles, which were not involved in the accident, should be "stacked" with the $10k UM policy on the motorcycle he was riding at the time of the accident. However, only the Motorcycle Policy contained "stacked" UM coverage, and the Auto Policy was non-stacked. Angela and Bretton therefore argued that only the Motorcycle Policy provided UM coverage "whenever or wherever" Plaintiff was injured, and the more restrictive Non-stacked Auto Policy did not apply because he was not injured in one of his autos.

The U.S. 11th Circuit agreed, and rejected Plaintiff’s arguments in opposition. The Court explained that just because the motorcycle was the only vehicle in the Motorcycle Policy did not make the stacked coverage illusory. Rather, the stacked coverage for the Motorcycle Policy would follow Plaintiff and was available to "stack" onto any other available coverage. But since he was injured while operating the motorcycle, there was nothing else to "stack." Accordingly, the Court concluded that Plaintiff got exactly the coverage he asked and paid for, and he was not entitled to anything more. The decision contains some great explanations regarding the broader benefits that "stacked" UM coverage provides to an insured, even when a stacked policy lists only one vehicle, and will be very useful in defeating allegations we see in many cases regarding such coverage being illusory.?

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